Waiting for the end of the world (2)

12.20.12 - 2:58 pm | Steven T. Jones |

(15)

TULUM -- So rather than taking the 2:45pm bus today from Tulum to Chichen Itza for the Synthesis 2012 Festival and tomorrow's end of the Mayan Long Count calendar as planned, my sweetie's bout with some bad ceviche has delayed us by a day.
And frankly, I can't say that I'm disappointed as I hear the stories flowing back from the festival. The universe does indeed seem to give us what we need.

The promised shuttles from here and other Yucatan cities have been "wonky" at best, says my festival contact. Performers and others promised rooms by the festival say they've been given away. Even the sound system for the festival's DJs, bands, and speakers was turned around by locals threatening violence, the performers say they were told yesterday.

(The festival's Candice Holdorf told me: "Apparently another sound system was found locally so festival is proceeding as planned.")

"If it's a mess, we'll come back here and make the best of it," Jeff Scroggins, a musician with Minneapolis-based Earthshake World Rhythm Ensemble (whose drums don't need amps), told me as he related the lowdown while waiting for a private shuttle they arranged.

He wants to be in Chichen Itza for the big day, but he says he's perfectly happy to just come back to Tulum if they aren't feeling the Synthesis scene. "We've been staying on the beach all week and just manifesting gigs. We'll be fine."

So will I. There's either the wonky morning shuttle, or our afternoon tickets on the luxurious Ado bus to Chichen Itza. Or there are various festivals in Tulum, Playa del Carmen, and other Yucatan spots celebrating the Mayan moment, winter solstice, and galactic alignment.

Whatever it happens, I plan to just be present for this moment and let energies of the universe take me where they will.

Comments

Tulum is pretty nice. I'd just stay there.

Best ceviche I ever had was there - you were unlucky.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 3:05 pm

I hope Steven teaches the

I hope Steven teaches the natives about Burning Man. Also, a bus will get him where he wants to go faster than the energies of the universe will.

Posted by Pagerank Checker on Mar. 24, 2013 @ 4:37 am

Turismo chistoso

El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Que tenga buen viaje. El turismo es chiste, nada mas.

Posted by Troll the XIV on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 6:34 pm

"My sweetie?"

I'M not there Steven!! :-)

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 8:35 pm

How in the world does someone

How in the world does someone like you have a "sweetie"? The world must really be ending...

Posted by Guest on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 10:36 pm

I'm Not Waiting for the World to End

Great song to sing on December 21, 2012:

"The Morning After The End of The World".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWmHQNwCrfU

Posted by will galison on Dec. 20, 2012 @ 11:47 pm

Burning Man

I hope Steven teaches the natives about Burning Man. Also, a bus will get him where he wants to go faster than the energies of the universe will.

Posted by Chromefields on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 9:56 am

There is saome truth to the old organized religion cannard

that if you take away organized religion some people will believe anything. I don't think this new age non sense is any better or worse than organized religion and probably better than extremist religion.

The need to believe is strange though, over the years Jesus has not come back, Allah hasn't smited the great Satan with the wave of his hand, new age predictions fail over and over again, space brothers in UFO's don't land, the Bermuda triangle sold a lot of books, no one has dug up the golden Mormon tablets... Often times it's all just made up non sense to begin with to sell books, or the ravings a mad people.

After all of this failure the true believers come back for more, waiting for the real deal. All of these searchers, seekers and "wisdom keepers" never tire of being wrong.

It makes a kind of sense that Steve and many on the far left falls for this so easily, there is a secret knowledge in revealed new age that the rest of us are just to thick to get, true believers love having the inside dope. The politics are make believe so their other belief systems should follow.

Posted by matlock on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 11:33 am

The Real Story

Here’s an idea Steven. Why don’t you do an article on the Mayan people, explaining why nearly six in 10 indigenous children suffer from chronic malnutrition? Or how the infant mortality rate has hit 40 per 1,000 live births, according to the UN Development Program (UNDP). Explain why 11.7 million Mexicans , mostly indigenous, have no access to health care and education, and don't earn enough to purchase the minimum food needed for daily sustenance. And don't neglect to tell mention the U.S. role in that.

Then take us back in history a bit, and tell us about the 600 massacres of indigenous communities which were recorded between 1960-1996 as tens of thousands of Mayans sought refuge in southern Mexico from the brutal counter-insurgency during Guatemala’s civil war. And tell how, at present, areas that are home to Mexico’s indigenous peoples have seen an influx of troops as part of the government’s war on drugs.

You’re a journalist, Steven. Are you going to report on a bunch of fat, spoiled and overly pampered gringos using Mexico as their playground. Or are you planning to do the job of a progressive journalist by giving us the real story about the Mayan people? Just wondering.

Posted by Ana on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 12:35 pm

Debbie Downer called

She wants her act back.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 12:50 pm

Ana, why don't you stop being a killjoy and accept that the

world will never be a totally equal and fair place?

And that notwithstanding, people can go on vacation wherever they damn well please.

You're a sanctimonious, self-righteous irritant.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 1:26 pm

Save the planet – a message from another world

Yes, at the rate we're going, the world will end... perhaps not today, nor tomorrow, or even anytime soon. But the truth is, we are killing this beautiful. Twenty years ago, the Kogi tribe, from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, attempted to get a message to "the younger brother" (those of us in the so-called "civilized world") to stop poisoning this beautiful planet. They had been observing with alarm how the glaciers were melting, the climatic changes increasing in ferocity with more frequent landslides and floods, followed by droughts and deforestation.

The Kogi were one of the few pre-Columbian tribes to resist the conquest by Europeans. But global capitalism is slowly conquering the Kogi's isolation. However, this is not just affecting the Kogi way of life, but is "cutting out of the eyes and ears" of the great mother (the earth), as they say. It is slowly but surely anhilating the life on this beautiful planet.

The Kogi view it as a spiritual order on the part of the younger brother, who does not know how to live in balance with nature. As Kogi leader Jacinto said, "You give precedence to the use of a thing rather than its source. That's the intellectual error. Ultimately, it's all nature." There is little doubt that we are deeply troubled spiritually and our spiritual lack is harming the world that sustains us.

The Kogi believe that their responsibility for taking care of the world is absolute, and it's the duty and function of the rest of their society to ensure they do that. Perhaps we could learn something by paying attention to this wisdom from the "elder brother".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnLX9pdKuEg

Posted by Pachamama on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 2:46 pm

Message to the Kogi

Bite me, savages.

Posted by Chromefields on Dec. 26, 2012 @ 9:26 am

It's already 12/22 on most of the planet so I'm guessing that

the world is not going to end. Cute cartoon I saw today:

Mayan #1 offers Mayan #2 some tequila.

Mayan #2 replies: "Oh sure, why not, I was working on this calendar, but it's not like the world is going to end if I don't finish it".

Heh.

Posted by Guest on Dec. 21, 2012 @ 3:05 pm

I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education.